... and so ends my daily journal. I continued teaching in Sakugi, Japan for a full year after this, finishing my contract in July 2005.

Events of the 2004-2005 year include:

• KIMITA Somewhere along the line, Miyoshi Jr. High got traded for Kimita Jr. High / Kimita Elementary which turned out to be my all-time favorite place to teach. My co-workers at Kimita (a Sakugi-sized town about a half hour from Sakugi) were so cheerful and included me in everything, even the school play done by the teachers. (I have me on video in a wig saying almost 20 Japanese lines I barely understood because they were in an old dialect, but one random English line.) They also LOVED my Newsletter and all read it cover to cover after I handed it out. I also did an English Day at Kimita Jr. High with 4 other ALTs that went over awesome (I made S'Mores so how could it not?). I always feel bad that I never did an English Day for Sakugi, but 1. I had not realized how easy it would be and 2. The English teacher at Kimita (whom I adored, even if he was a little eccentric) did a lot of the organizing. Also, I got to do my own elective class there where I was in charge of 100% of it. It was AWESOME. I did Apples to Apples and brought my laptop / microphone in a couple times (since the class was so small.) We even watched a scene from Pirates of the Carribean once. I also got to play the shamisen for the first time.
• THOUGH... They did completely take away Elementary school ALT teaching all over Miyoshi in March, though, which was a very sad thing. On a better note, I got to host my own English classes more and more often, which even though I always felt a bit panicked, usually turned out good, especially the macaroni game where students ask each other questions in English and must use things like "Hmm, Well, Let me see," while answering. If they use Japanese (especially eeeeeto - the Japanese 'ummm') they lose a macaroni. Sometimes the game works better than other times, but without exception, everyone loves playing with the macaroni.
• SNOW TIRE CHAINS Learned the hard way how to put snow chains on my tires. (The hard way meaning, getting up an hour early to leave time for shoveling, (confirming from the curt Kimita Principal that there was still school that day), still getting stuck on the way out, never managing to get my car out, managing to walk to Sakugi Jr. High for a half-day instead, and that evening, finally getting - from my neighbor - the missing "bands" required to make my tire chains actually work.) I learned that it takes a LOT of snow for the Japanese to cancel class. I also learned that the Japanese don't really salt or sand the roads because it messes up the rice paddies.
• MAI-CHAN I started doing one-on-one lessons with Mai-chan (the sweet, but learning-disabled 8th grader.) I was impressed with her. Our favorite two activities were taking turnes writing numbers on the board and saying them in English (we wrote up to 100 even) and playing gold fish. I was a little bummed when they hired a teacher specifically for Mai-chan and that I didn't get to help with her English classes much any longer.
• VOLLEYBALL I joined in as the Sakugi girls started a volleyball team. I helped them practice every Tuesday afternoon (and they became so much more comfortable in the classroom with me after that) and went to some of their tournaments. Compared to the other schools, they were not very skilled, but they had awesome uniforms. And, wow, Japanese volleyball involves lots of noise. Every serve the server yells "Iku zo!" and the rest of the team screams some variation of "Yooooshi" and they have a word for every time the ball is bumped, set, or spiked. They must be hoarse after every practice and game.
• ROAD TRIPS I took two road trips in Japan, one to the island of Shikoku (with Yong) and one to the island of Kyushu, alone. Highlights include the Sex Shrine, Meeting an 88-Temples Pilgrim, the Fairy Tale Museum, and Driving On An Active Volcano.
• WINTER SONATA I got to be part of the teachers' song in the Sakugi culture festival singing a song from "Winter Sonata", a hugely, hugely, popular Korean drama on TV right now. We even did some very brief skits of go with the song. Fun, fun. It also explained the fact that, when I was flipping channels the other night and came upon this show, that I could not understand a word even though everyone looked Japanese and it sort of sounded Japanese.
• SPEAKING OF KOREA The 8th graders got to go on a school trip to freaking Korea. I was invited at first. Then, gradually, I was uninvited by the principal. Both the principal and my supervisor are getting very strict about my vacation time. I would agree with their reasoning more if I had more responsibility (and I told them so.)
• JLPT I failed the Japanese Language Proficiency Test by 3%. But I did discover a way to learn kanji that is a whole lot of fun. It was based off a technique I read about where you make up stories to go with symbols that mean what the symbol means. Although I failed the test, it did enable me to remember the random kanji for "Cedar" which caused us - during our road trip - to decide to visit the Biggest Cedar In Japan. Also, it made studying a heck of a lot of fun since it involved doodling and stories.
• ELECTION Watching the amazingly good U.S. Presidential election coverage on NHK (before it was pre-empted by kendo...)
• EIKAIWA Keeping up the fairly well-attended Sakugi Eikaiwa for a while (though attendance dropped to three near the end) and also picking up a volunteer kids evening eikaiwa in a town an hour south of Miyoshi. The purpose of the kids' eikaiwa was so they could learn enough English to ask questions to the astronauts on the space station. It was a lot of fun (even though they sometimes wanted me to teach really complicated English). I even got to be in the newspaper (The Chugoku Shimbun) for it - with a photo and everything! The irony at the end was that, the town of Sakugi could not afford to pay me for the eikaiwa, like they promised. But the volunteer one pitched in and gave me almost the same amount of cash I would have gotten for it (and the two were completely unrelated.)
• BOYFRIEND Even though I had thought about asking Tomomi out for a while (he is so darn cute) I ended up briefly dating an Indonesian for a while. It was strange to date someone who knew ZERO English and so having all our communication be in Japanese(though luckily his Japanese was better than mine). Highlights include skiing and going to see Christmas lights - the Japaense may not take the holiday seriously, but their decorations rival any American city.
• FIRE DRILL Here's a quote from my livejournal blog in Dec '04: "Well, the Earthquake & Fire Drill at Sakugi Jr. High today was superior to the one at Kimita Jr. High for two reasons. One, the kids at Sakugi actually went OUTDOORS in their INDOOR SLIPPERS, more realistically simulating what one should do in an emergency (the Kimita kids all stopped at the door to change shoes) and Two, the people from the fire department, following the inevitable "talk", let the kids play with fire extinguishers! I never got to play with fire extinguishers when I had fire drills in school! Cool! (though I hope the chemicals don't hurt that rice paddy...)"
• BUNNY WEEK A couple of my equally silly American friends living in Japan came up to visit me for Golden Week. It was Bunny Themed. It involved making Bunny-shaped okonomiyaki, so the amusement/horror of restaurant waitresses, and bunny puri-kura. The rest... you really don't want to know. :)